Çiğdem Koç
I am a lawyer and this means that I will turn to wherever I may find the law. Throughout my educational journey and professional career, I was given addresses of where I could find justice. These included Courts of First Instance, Appeals Courts, Constitutional Courts and international courts.
Time teaches one as a lawyer to seek justice beyond the courtroom, as well. I have a right to look for justice that fails to be upheld by courts, outside the corridors of a courtroom.
For some time now Turkey has been suffering under the yoke of injustices. Thousands of people, including our friends and clients, have been kept behind bars without appropriate reason or proof. In fact, some of our colleagues are behind bars due to their professional activities, like the president of the Progressive Lawyers Association (ÇHD) Selçuk Kozağaçlı, arrested in 2017 on terror charges.
The rule of law in Turkey is not only starving, but also dying of thirst. Because the shame of a lawyer who died on a hunger strike in pursuit of a frail trial haunts us. Hunger is not enough to explain the situation we are in.
As such, a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in December on the violation of rights of two of Turkey’s highest profile prisoners – Selahattin Demirtaş and Osman Kavala – was welcomed with open arms. The injustices suffered by both are each symbols and carry hope for those who are in a similar predicament. And it feels good to have something to reciprocate for the hope they give me when I visit them in prison
Moreover, a move by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers earlier this month to call on the Turkish government to implement binding ECHR judgments and release Kavala and Demirtaş also brings me joy.
My country is in a part of a world that does not make concessions on modern, universal legal principles and no ruling power can change that – this I have no doubt about. Just as I don’t doubt that justice will never die, even if it temporarily goes to sleep, it will inevitably wake up.
But somewhere there’s a very big mistake happening, in fact, a grave injustice to be very clear. Because nobody lays out a framework of what to do when the ECHR, the body that is applied to when domestic ways of seeking justice fails, also fails to deliver justice.
I am speaking here about the file of Turkish journalist and author Ahmet Altan.
Altan was detained on Sept. 10, 2016 before being arrested on Sept. 23 of the same year and he has remained in Silivri Prison on the outskirts of Istanbul since. He was first handed down a life sentence without parole, but Turkey’s Supreme Court overturned the ruling. Still, Altan was given a record-breaking 10 years in prison on the controversial charges of not being a member of but “helping a terrorist organisation.’’
While the prison sentence for actual membership in a terror group is far less than the punishment given to Altan, there is, of course, no logical or legal reasoning for his sentence. And he is likely the only person in Turkey still behind bars on this charge.
And when the initial verdict was reached he was released only to be remanded in custody because his “external behaviour” was displeasing to some. He has been jailed for almost five years now.
But what I am attempting to highlight is not the details of the Altan case or the injustices taking place in Turkey, I want to speak of something more bizarre than this.
Altan and his economy professor brother, Mehmet Altan, who were on trial as part of the same case, applied to the ECHR at the same time, on Jan. 12, 2017. Their files appear to be a “connected dossier.”
The ECHR ruled that Mehmet Altan’s rights had been violated on Feb. 20, 2018 and he later was acquitted on the charges against him, namely that he had prior knowledge of the 2016 coup attempt and that he had given “subliminal messages” about it to the public.
But despite the fact that their files are connected, there ECHR has yet to address the case of Ahmet Altan. One cannot help but ask, what has happened to Altan’s file?
Article 6 of the European Convention on Human rights stipulates that “everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.’’
But what happens when the ECHR does not follow the convention and delivers a verdict on a file linked to Altan’s three years ago while keeping quiet on the journalist for this long? Does this not mean the ECHR violating the human rights convention? Is there an address one can turn to when we cannot find justice with the ECHR?
And then what do we do when the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers – the body responsible for overseeing the implementation of ECHR decisions – keeps quiet on Altan? And this while referring to case of his brother Mehmet Altan in their statement regarding Demirtaş and Kavala.
The hypocrisy in my country regarding injustice and lawlessness no longer surprises me, even though it continues to anger me. I know that politics hovers over the judiciary like a dark cloud. And everyone is dealing with injustices in their own neighbourhood. When your own neighbourhood is burning down, it becomes harder to care about what is happening elsewhere.
I’m not surprised by those who define themselves as democratic rights defenders uniting in a shameless silence on the issue of Ahmet Altan. History is nothing when you remove magnificence of the solitary struggle of intellectuals like him. This society will surely pay a price for remaining in the shadow of a novelist, who has been behind bars for five years due to three articles he penned.
But what then about the ECHR and European Parliament and similar international organisations? Can anyone explain their silence?
Does this kind of discrimination not mar the reliability of the message of such institutions on human rights, democracy and the rule of law?
Are the efforts of a few human rights organisations or various PEN associations adequate?
There are some very simple questions to be asked: who is waiting on what to speak up on this case and why?
Why does the European Parliament or the Committee of Ministers – which have called for democracy and the rule of law in the cases of Demirtaş and Kavala – not turn to the ECHR to ask this question?
If they think we are going to suffice with has already been given to Turkey, in a state of gratitude for what we have been delivered, then they are very wrong.
I could care less but political calculations and balances.
I will continue to ask this question until every person required to do so does the same and the hypocrisy and lawlessness on the Ahmet Altan file comes to an end. What happened to the Ahmet Altan file?
Ahval: https://ahvalnews.com/ahmet-altan/what-happened-ahmet-altans-file
